“On my return back home after her burial, I first received my Primal Urge towards Self-Expression. Till then I had never realised myself.... Ah!”
He had found it at last in a breast pocket—a lank and knotty cigar.
“And what, sir, is your genuine Opinion of Prohibition?” he asked when the butt had been moistened to his liking.
“Oh!—er! It’s a—a gallant adventure!” I babbled, for somehow I had tuned myself to listen-in to tales of other things. He turned towards me slowly.
“The Revelation qua Prohibition that came to me on my return back home from her funeral was not along those lines. This is the Platform I stood on.” I became, thenceforward, one of vast crowds being addressed from that Platform.
“There are Races, sir, which have been secluded since their origin from the microbes—the necessary and beneficent microbes—of Civ’lisation. Once those microbes are introdooced to ’em, those races re-act precisely in proportion to their previous immunity or Racial Virginity. Measles, which I’ve had twice and never laid by for, are as fatal to the Papuan as pneumonic plague to the White. Alcohol, for them, is disaster, degeneration, and death. Why? You can’t get ahead of Cause and Effect. Protect any race from its natural and God-given bacteria and you automatically create the culture for its decay, when that protection is removed. That, sir, is my Thesis.”
The unlit cigar between his lips circled slowly, but I had no desire to laugh.
“The virgin Red Indian fell for the Firewater of the Paleface as soon as it was presented to him. For Firewater, sir, he parted with his lands, his integrity, an’ his future. What is he now? An Ethnological Survival under State Protection. You get me? Immunise, or virg’nise, the Cit’zen of the United States to alcohol, an’ you as surely redooce him to the mental status an’ outlook of that Redskin. That is the Ne-mee-sis of Prohibition. And the Process has begun, sir. Haven’t you noticed it already”—he gulped—“among Our People?”
“Well,” I said. “Men don’t always act as they preach, of course.”
“You won’t abrade my National Complex. What’s the worst you’ve seen in connection with Our People—and Rum?” The round lenses were full on me. I chanced it.